Updated: UK newspapers clash over Snowden surveillance scoop claims

UPDATE (5.15am PT): Glenn Greenwald has asserted several things that, if true, would cast serious doubt on The Independent‘s version of events.

The Guardian journalist claimed on Friday that (as far as he knows) the Independent story was wrong in saying The Guardian faced reporting restrictions. He also quoted Edward Snowden himself as saying he had not not passed any material on to The Independent and suggesting that the sensitive Middle East surveillance base story was leaked to that paper by the British government itself, in an attempt to discredit the disclosures of The Guardian and the Washington Post.

A fun fact that may or may not be relevant, but should be noted anyway: The Independent is owned by Alexander Lebedev and his son Evgeny. Lebedev Senior, a Russian oligarch, is a noted critic of Vladimir Putin. Putin has granted Snowden temporary asylum.

The original story follows.

The British government pressured the country’s Guardian newspaper into limiting its surveillance coverage, another UK paper, The Independent, has claimed.

Late on Thursday, The Independent published a scoop, derived from Edward Snowden’s leaks, about a secret British surveillance base somewhere in or near the Middle East. The paper has not previously published any new Snowden information, with The Guardian — which has worked closely with the former NSA contractor — being the only British newspaper to have done so.

There is no right to freedom of speech in the UK, even though European law supposedly guarantees a right to free expression. Without claiming any inside knowledge of what went on, it appears to me as an observer that the British press is now playing pass-the-parcel with the Snowden information in order to get around this fact.

“As well as destroying a computer containing one copy of the Snowden files, the paper’s editor, Alan Rusbridger, agreed to restrict the newspaper’s reporting of the documents.

“The Government also demanded that the paper not publish details of how UK telecoms firms, including BT and Vodafone, were secretly collaborating with GCHQ to intercept the vast majority of all internet traffic entering the country. The paper had details of the highly controversial and secret programme for over a month. But it only published information on the scheme – which involved paying the companies to tap into fibre-optic cables entering Britain – after the allegations appeared in the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung. A Guardian spokeswoman refused to comment on any deal with the Government.”

Miranda rights

Weeks later, David Miranda, the partner of Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, was detained for 9 hours at Heathrow airport while in transit from Berlin to Rio de Janeiro, and intelligence officials seized his computers and digital storage devices.

Miranda’s detention and the Guardian hardware destruction have drawn the attention of the Council of Europe, the European body that exists to maintain cooperation between European states around the rule of law and human rights.

“These measures, if confirmed, may have a potentially chilling effect on journalists’ freedom of expression as guaranteed by Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

“I would therefore be grateful to you if you could provide information on these reports and comment on the compatibility of the measures taken with the United Kingdom’s obligations under the Convention.”

Lord Falconer, the former British lord chancellor who helped bring in the Terrorism Act 2000 under which Miranda was detained, has also chimed in to say this was not what the law was intended for.

That Middle East station

According to The Independent, the British station in the Middle East is something of a crown jewel for the intelligence services. Part of the wider Tempora scheme, the station – which is still being set up — is apparently able to intercept communications from across the Middle East through satellite dishes and by tapping undersea telecoms cables.

The station’s activities were first authorised by David Miliband, the foreign secretary under the previous Labour government, in order to gather “information about the ‘political intentions of foreign powers’, terrorism, proliferation, mercenaries and private military companies, and serious financial fraud.” This remit gets renewed every six months, and “can be changed by ministers at will.”

The Independent seems to know the station’s location, but did not reveal it in its story.